Hayato's Day with the Dog
by Taru Rui
Summary: Hayato finds himself particularly bored one day as the only idle squad member of the Morning City Ouendan. Well, except one other... So, they go for a contemplative walk together. Slight language.


AN: This is a rather old writing way before I started on the Sound of Cacophony. Ouendan 2 had just come out at the time...

I was experimenting with the ... whatcha callit... third person singular or something of that concept. In other words, it's written in third person but only focuses on the thoughts and ideas of one character, in this case Hayato.

This plot came around before I really developed my idea of the Ouendan world... but a lot of the concepts stuck. Like my friends and I still call the Asahi Dog "Kaoru-chan" just because (of Kibun Joujou). I haven't used it in later fics, though.

But it looks to me that the development doesn't flow well. x( Oh well. I'm just throwing out the idea here.

Terminology notes:  
Evening City = Yuhi  
Morning City = Asahi  
Captain = danchou, president, chief. Some people use these words but I like Captain myself X)  
Tan Yao = Yasushi Tanaka, protagonist of the Linda Linda stage in Ouendan 1. In other words, the ramen guy.

(btw, there are slight punctuation changes from the dA version of this story.)

Enjoy!

* * *

One sunny day as clear as can be, and he was... walking the dog.

The girls had already left to get ice cream with the rookie, and the captain and the two sidelines were supposedly "too busy" to deal with him. (Of course, "busy" included some paperwork, making tea, and brushing Sugita's hair. It's so long, geez...) So the leader of the Morning City Ouendan, Hayato Saionji, had pretty much absolutely nothing to do (besides wait for a distressed call of "Ouendan!" in Morning City). At least, he couldn't think of anything to do until the squad dog started yipping at him. The blonde had stared at the dog dully until finally deciding how he'd be spending his time for the day...

So here he was, walking in the city park dressed casually in an ordinary light blue polo and jeans, trailing behind the dog, nicknamed Kaoru-chan (by the lead cheer girl, Rin Shirosaki when she noticed how eerily similar its behavior was to their captain's, Kaoru Kiryuin). Making sure he had a hold on the leash, Hayato let himself drift into other thoughts... such as Evening City's Ouendan. He scowled; nothing was more annoying than their leader, Ryuta Ippongi. That guy certainly must've thought he was all that... he really wasn't. Even if he did beat Hayato in twelve out of fifteen rounds of arm wrestling.

Really, he couldn't stand that air of superiority that hung around the guy. It was in every meeting the two squads had up until the sun died out. When the Morning City Ouendan neared Yuhi's shore of the river, Ippongi stared him down for a bit... and walked away without any other sort of acknowledgement. The same happened when they ran into each other again at sunset. And again with the fish, and yet again with the cat, and still yet again when the world was starting to freeze over. However... the one thing that probably pissed Hayato off the most was when Ippongi and his squad nearly sacrificed their lives to prevent the Morning City squad from receiving the full force of a glacier falling towards them. He must've thought that was a noble thing to do (that's not his job; they don't call Morning City's squad the "Kouketsu no Ouendan" -- the Noble Ouendan -- for no reason) when in actuality, he caused great disappointment and sadness in his city. Seriously, all those people were in tears. He better be thankful that the little boy started their revival effort.

Then the guy had to go beat him in twelve rounds of arm wrestling. What a jerk.

A rapid, high-pitched barking noise interrupted Hayato's contemplation. He glanced at Kaoru-chan, who was now growling and barking at a figure up ahead.

"Kaoru-chan, what-- AHHHH!" the Ouendan leader never finished his inquiry as the maltese dog shot forward, now chasing whatever she had spotted. The yowl of a cat only elicited a sweatdrop from him, now clinging to the leash as he was dragged along by Kaoru-chan. He never figured that the dog was this strong... and he had more to worry about when his sweaty hands started to slip from the leash.

"Hey, hold it! Kaoru-chan! Stop!" Hayato yelled, but it didn't remedy the situation at all. In fact, things just went further downhill for him as both the cat and the dog took a sharp, ninety-degree turn, leaving inertia to deliver Hayato into the nearby pond.

"Oi, Neko! Hey, I found you! C'mon, stop bothering others!" a voice called, masculine and rough as opposed to Hayato's smooth tone. The cat jumped into the arms of the voice's owner, a tall guy clad in a dark red t-shirt and baggy brown shorts. His spiky hair was put in a topknot just as spiky as the rest of his hair, which was a mixture of a rusty red color and black, opposed to Hayato's bright, blonde, straight, and long hair. Now, this person was dealing with Kaoru-chan, who was still trying to get to the cat. By this point, Hayato had resurfaced, garnering the attention of the one holding the cat.

"Shh... calm down-- Oi! Saionji! Nice day for a swim, isn't it?" he remarked, grinning with obvious amusement.

"Oh, I'm sure you'd like to go swimming too, Ippongi," Hayato growled sarcastically, flicking wet blonde bangs out of his face.

"I'd love to, but I'm not too keen on jumping into a pond in the middle of a park. Need a hand?" Ippongi offered a hand to Hayato, still in the pond.

There was a short pause until Hayato reached out to grab onto Ippongi's hand, hesitating for a second (he thought of dragging the leader of the Evening City Ouendan into the pond, but that would probably make himself look bad) until clasping on, allowing both his strength and the other's to lift himself onto dry land (which wasn't quite so dry once Hayato was standing on it).

"...I assume this is your dog?" Ippongi asked, pointing to the dog in question.

"She belongs to the squad, and she's going to get quite a scolding..." Hayato replied, giving Kaoru-chan a glare as her tongue hung limp out of her open mouth and she wagged her tail.

"Heh. Well, good luck with that... and I apologize for earlier. Stupid Neko's been misbehaving too. Must be cuz he gets spoiled by Suzuki and Tanaka after living with Tan Yao for a while. It's hard enough to take care of such a rambunctious cat by yourself, but to run a business while taking care of this cat..."

"Well, it's not your fault..."

"Anyway, I wouldn't mind sticking around, but I gotta head back before Suzuki freaks out because of this cat..."

Hayato gave no other reply than a nod. With that, Ippongi turned to leave, not before chipping in one last thing.

"Feel free to drop by our place sometime. The captain makes us train like hell if we're idle."

The blonde simply stared as the red-head left the park. Then he looked down at Kaoru-chan, who looked back up at him, panting happily.

"...You are terrible, Kaoru-chan," Hayato sighed, picking the dog up and heading back to the squad boat, the Asahi Sunrise III.

Maybe Ippongi isn't as much of a jerk as Hayato originally thought.

...Nah. No way.


End file.
